


Red

by sendal



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-25
Updated: 2011-05-25
Packaged: 2017-10-19 18:44:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/204070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sendal/pseuds/sendal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's skin is red all over.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red

**Author's Note:**

> Post-hell (Dean).

Dean's skin is red all over. Blisters mar both of his palms. His eyes are swollen shut and he's breathing hoarsely through his throat in a way that doesn't bode well. Sam gets him into the motel room and into a bed and then stands over him, despairing, helpless.

It's no good dragging your brother out of hell if the fire of the damned has seared into his pores, if hellfire has charred him inside and out.

He runs a bath of tepid water and dumps oatmeal into it. John had used oatmeal that summer Sam and Dean both got bad sunburns at Coney Island, and it's been a Winchester staple every since. Sam gets Dean into the tub and listens obsessively to his breathing, to air whistling through swollen passages. He drapes a cold cloth over Dean's forehead.

"Come on, wake up," Sam urges. "You're out, Dean. You're safe."

No murmur of protest. No sign that Dean can hear him, even - that his eardrums remain intact after the heat and flame.

Out of the bath, back to bed. Sam props him up on pillows and runs an ice cube over Dean's lips. Tries to get him to suck on it. Fails. There's a brief moment of hope when Dean's eyes slit open a tiny bit, but there's no awareness there. No consciousness of anything other than heat and hell.

Aloe gel next, smoothed over the broad expanses of injured skin. "You got blisters all over your face," he says aloud, thinking back to Coney Island. He had been eight, Dean was twelve. Some ghost hunt or another had brought them to New York City, one of the few times Sam can remember his dad willingly travel to the East Coast. John had always preferred the middle of the continent, and never the edges. Funny for a guy who lived on the edge of everything else -- the law, society, the human heart.

Dean is very much is father's son when it comes to the broad land of America.

But the heartland had sucked him into hell, the final clause the crossroads deal. Sam had gotten him back -- had gotten back this burned body, this reddened shell. Whether there was any soul left inside remained to be seen.

"We rode the roller coaster seven times in a row," Sam says, laying cool towels over the aloe. "We ate cotton candy until we threw up."

Dean's breathing is quieter now.

Sam turns the air-conditioning up on high and darkens all the lights but the bathroom. Outside the drawn curtain, the sky is red and a dusty wind gusts past the door. He crawls into bed with Dean but doesn't touch him. The cool cotton sheet covers them both. Even from a few inches away Sam can feel the heat of his brother's body.

Sam closes his eyes and thinks of the steady rush of the Atlantic Ocean. He pictures the world awash in blue, not red. He remembers two boys riding, riding, riding into the sky. And when he opens his eyes Dean is watching him.

"You came," Dean rasps out.

"I always will," Sam says.

the end


End file.
